It looks like these two are the villains in the game, not the people you are playing. Marcus seems a little afraid of them, and he says you guys "aren't vault hunters". Plus the guy has a hyprion symbol on his jacket, which is probably the sign of a bad guy. It may take place between Boarderlands 1 and 2, maybe its the story of how hyprion gained all this power from the end of Boarderlands to the beginning of Boarderlands 2